This invention relates generally to article processing and pertains more particularly to article inventorying with the benefit of radio-frequency (RF) tags associated with the articles and having RF readable article identification capacity.
RF tags are in widespread usage in such areas as tracking of locations of persons, e.g., doctor in hospitals, parties entering and leaving secured areas, and articles, e.g., as in the case of various known electronic article surveillance systems.
In the person tracking applications, persons wear RF-interrogatable tags which have memory for storing a xe2x80x9cpreamblexe2x80x9d, i.e., an introductory message code portion common to the particular person tracking system, and an ensuing message code portion uniquely indicating an identifying coding specific to the person bearing the tag. The tags have further facility for detecting an interrogating RF carrier in which the preamble message code portion is present and respond thereupon with a transmission containing the tag memory content, i.e., the preamble and the person-identifying coding.
In the article surveillance situation, articles are equipped with tags which respond to certain interrogations, e.g., at store or library exits, to cause RF receivers at such locations to indicate that the article tag has not been deactivated. Tag deactivation customarily occurs at a checkout station, but is sometimes overlooked or ineffectively implemented, such that the tag remains armed to respond to interrogation. The article surveillance tags may be of a type simply resonating in response to incident RF energy, and providing RF detectable energy bearing identifying modulation content, based on a nonlinear element, e.g., a diode in the tag resonant circuit which reacts differently to positive and negative cycles of the system carrier. In article surveillance systems, the responses of all participating tags provide generally identical outputs and do not afford individual article identification as in the case of the person-tracking systems.
The subject invention has as its primary object to further extend the use of active RF tags in improved article inventory processing.
In broad practice aspect, the invention provides a method for processing articles comprising the steps of defining an article assortment inclusive of articles having different descriptions, distributing the articles into an enclosure and providing the enclosure with an RF-interrogatable unit having stored indications of the descriptions of articles contained therein.
In more particular practice aspect, the invention provides a method for processing articles, comprising the steps of defining an article assortment inclusive of articles having different descriptions, distributing the articles into an enclosure, providing the enclosure with an RF-interrogatable unit having stored indications of the descriptions of articles contained therein and RF-interrogating the enclosure RF-interrogatable unit to determine enclosure article contents.
In broad system aspect, the invention provides a system for processing an article assortment inclusive of articles having different descriptions, comprising an enclosure containing a grouping of the articles and an RF-interrogatable unit with the enclosure and having stored indications of the descriptions of the articles contained therein.
In more particular system aspect, the invention provides a system for processing an article assortment inclusive of articles having different descriptions, comprising an enclosure containing a grouping of the articles, an RF-interrogatable unit with the enclosure and having stored indications of the descriptions of the articles contained therein and RF-interrogating means for RF interrogating the enclosure RF-interrogatable unit to determine enclosure article contents.
The foregoing and other objects and features of the invention will be further understood from consideration of the following detailed description of preferred embodiments and practices and from the drawings, wherein like reference numerals identify like components throughout.